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Grammy Dramas to Watch For

Mumford & Sons performing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.Credit
Chad Batka for The New York Times

NO one dominates the field of contenders for the Grammy Awards this year as Adele did a year ago. And so far there has been little drama leading up to Sunday night’s ceremony that can rival the sudden death of Whitney Houston last year or Adele’s much-talked-about return from vocal surgery.

So does this year’s show run the risk of being a snooze? Fear not, music fans, there are plenty of minidramas to watch for that could make the evening’s proceedings, to be broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. Eastern time from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, interesting.

For starters the pop-rock trio Fun. is the first act since Amy Winehouse in 2007 to have a shot at sweeping all four of the prestigious general awards. This Brooklyn group, whose “Some Nights” album spun off the smash hit “We Are Young,” is nominated for record, album and song of the year, as well as best new artist. The only artist in the 55-year history of the awards to win all four awards was Christopher Cross in 1980. (The feat seemed to be a kiss of death for Mr. Cross, whose career has sputtered since.)

Can Fun. do it? “It seems like a long shot,” said Nate Ruess, the band’s frontman. The group faces stiff competition for record of the year (which is for a single) from Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” the best-selling single of the year. In the contest for song of the year, an award for songwriters, Fun.’s “We Are Young” must outpoll the British newcomer Ed Sheeran, whose song about a drug-addicted prostitute, “The A Team,” was a sleeper hit, and Carly Rae Jepsen’s ubiquitous summer anthem “Call Me Maybe.”

Still, Fun. has a fighting chance to take the coveted album of the year award. That contest seems dominated by rock of various flavors — poppy, bluesy, folksy — and is notable more for what is not there than what is. There are no female artists, no pop divas, no rappers, no country crooners.

Instead the category has groups heard frequently on alternative rock stations: Mumford & Sons, the Black Keys and Jack White. Mumford & Sons have yet to win a Grammy, even though their stomping folk style has spearheaded a revival of folk-rock. The Black Keys and Jack White both produced howling blues-rock records that typically do well with Grammy voters.

The last contender is Frank Ocean, the R&B singer whose debut solo album, “Channel Orange,” was on many critics’ Top 10 lists for the year. Mr. Ocean gained importance as a public figure when he broke an unspoken code in the R&B world and announced before the album was released that his first love had been a man.

“Frank Ocean has become a really strong dark-horse pick,” said Bill Werde, editorial director of Billboard. “He’s a fashionable artist in the music business these days, because he has that great mix of critical respect and commercial appeal.”

Also nominated in the album and song of the year categories, Mr. Ocean will probably be Fun.’s closest rival in the best new artist category as well. Two of the other hopefuls for that prize are darlings of the alt-rock world: the folksy Lumineers and the R&B-inflected Alabama Shakes. Hunter Hayes, a country wunderkind, rounds out the list. “It’s beyond flattering,” Mr. Ruess said. “Win or lose it’s just great and cool to be nominated with that group.”

Another closely watched artist will be Nas, the veteran New York rapper, who has never won a Grammy, despite nine previous nominations and six No. 1 albums that each sold more than a million copies, starting with the classic “Illmatic” back in 1994. This could be the year the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which bestows the Grammys, finally recognizes his contributions. He is nominated in every rap category — song, album, rap-sung collaboration (with Amy Winehouse) and performance — for his album “Life Is Good,” which explored middle-age themes like fatherhood and divorce.

So it is possible that this 39-year-old rapper could sweep the category, though he will face challenges in the best album contest from Drake’s “Take Care” and the Roots’ “Undun,” as well as new albums by Rick Ross and 2 Chainz.

“Everyone is looking for Nas to get what he deserves rightfully as an artist,” said Chuck Creekmur, the founder of AllHipHop.com. “This album is a deeply personal album, and a lot of people have seen his struggles over the years.”

Neither Nas nor Drake made the cut for album of the year, however. Historically the Recording Academy’s voters have shied away from giving the top album honor to rap artists, the only exceptions being Lauryn Hill in 1999 and OutKast in 2004. Kanye West has won 18 Grammys, but they have all been in the rap field, a fact about which he has complained publicly.

“You can look at the results and see that voters are mostly comfortable with pop and pop rock and less so with hip-hop,” said Paul Grein, a pop music writer for Yahoo who tracks the Grammys closely. “They need to overcome their resistance to rap, because it’s here, and it’s an essential part of pop music.”

Adele, who won six Grammys last year for her blockbuster “21,” is not completely out of this year’s competition. She has a chance to become the first female soloist to win back-to-back Grammys in the pop field since Barbra Streisand did so in the 1960s. That’s because her live version of “Set Fire to the Rain” was released late enough to qualify for this year’s cycle and is nominated for best female pop vocal performance. She will have to best Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, Rihanna and Ms. Jepsen.

One of the hottest contests will be for best contemporary urban album, a close three-way race among Mr. Ocean’s “Channel Orange,” Chris Brown’s “Fortune,” and Miguel’s “Kaleidoscope Dream.” Mr. Ocean and Miguel’s albums were both acclaimed by critics, and each can lay claim to having reinvented for a new generation the sort of music Marvin Gaye pioneered. Mr. Brown’s album, which was dance oriented, was a commercial success, reaching the top of Billboard’s R&B chart.

The competition took on personal overtones last week when Mr. Ocean and Mr. Brown got involved in a brawl over a parking space outside a recording studio in Los Angeles. Mr. Ocean, who suffered a cut on his finger, threatened to press charges then changed his mind. It was a merciful act, since Mr. Brown is still serving five years’ probation for beating and choking his girlfriend, the pop diva Rihanna, just before the Grammys back in 2009; a new criminal charge could have derailed his career.

Adding to the drama, Rihanna, who is nominated this year for best pop solo performance, announced in the current issue of Rolling Stone that she has forgiven Mr. Brown and has resumed dating him, even though it might send a questionable message to young female fans. “Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake,” she said.

Mr. Ocean’s decision to drop charges was not the end of Mr. Brown’s legal troubles, however. This week he went before a judge in Los Angeles to answer an allegation from prosecutors there that he had failed to complete six months of community service in his home state, Virginia, that was part of his sentence for assaulting Rihanna, turning in false time sheets. An assistant district attorney asked the court to compel Mr. Brown to redo the sentence in Los Angeles, as Rihanna sat in the front row and blew kisses to Mr. Brown.

The judge put off a decision until a hearing on April 5. So Mr. Brown will be able to attend the Grammys, raising the question: Will the couple attend the ceremony together? And might they perform a duet?

On the jazz front genre mashing has become the rage with young musicians, and the Grammys reflect that this year. The pianist Robert Glasper’s album “Black Radio” was one of the biggest stories in jazz last year, a melding of acoustic jazz with hip-hop and soul music elements. He’s nominated for two awards, but neither of them in the jazz field. Grammy voters put “Black Radio” on the list for best performance and best album in the R&B category. That decision reflects a vital trend in jazz, as young artists like Mr. Glasper, Esperanza Spalding and José James are infusing their jazz with other genres.

The best dance recording category has a dark horse candidate: Al Walser, an obscure producer from Liechtenstein who managed to get on the ballot by wooing members of the Recording Academy directly through its social-networking Web site, Grammy 365. He is competing against the usual list of top-flight D.J.’s: Skrillex, Calvin Harris, Avicii and Swedish House Mafia. But if Mr. Walser wins, it could encourage other B-list artists to start online lobbying efforts.

The Latin jazz category has been reinstated this year, just a year after the trustees cut it and sparked a storm of protest. And Bobby Sanabria, a drummer who led the successful campaign to restore the category, is reaping the rewards. His band’s “Multiverse” is nominated for best Latin jazz album. “It is funny,” he said. “It will be a lot better being inside than standing outside with a picket sign.” He added, “What I’m really happy about is this category came back so this marginalized form of American music can get more light shed on it.”

The bluegrass field seldom gets much attention. This year the Chicago banjo master Greg Cahill is up against his former pupil Noam Pikelny, the banjoist with Punch Brothers. Mr. Pikelny, who currently lives in Brooklyn, is nominated for his solo release “Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail.” Mr. Cahill’s Chicago group, Special Consensus, is nominated for the release “Scratch Gravel Road.” Mr. Pikelny started studying with Mr. Cahill as a teenager and still considers him a mentor.

Ravi Shankar, the sitar player who died in December at 92, is not only to receive a posthumous lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy but also is nominated in the best world music album category for “The Living Room Sessions, Part 1.” That would be strange enough, if his daughter Anoushka Shankar was not also nominated in the same category for her album “Traveller.” His other musically talented daughter, Nora Jones, is not nominated this year.

For the first time a soundtrack for a video game has been nominated for a Grammy Award in the category usually reserved for movie scores. The composer Austin Wintory, 28, who wrote the ethereal music for the PlayStation 3 game “Journey,” has been given a nod, pitting him against film-score giants like John Williams, Ludovic Bource, Hans Zimmer and Howard Shore.

The Americana category, which has only been around three years, is one to watch. Competing for best album are a collection of young string bands that have surged to the top of the rock and alternative charts over the last year, heading a revival of folk-rock: Mumford & Sons, the Lumineers and the Avett Brothers. All three are looking for their first Grammy. Added to the mix is Bonnie Raitt’s acclaimed album “Slipstream” and a little-known fingerpicking song man named John Fullbright.

“There is definitely something going on with Americana at the Grammy level,” said Jed Hilly, the executive director of the Americana Music Association. “The Grammys are a little more representative of the mainstream.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 8, 2013, on page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Grammy Dramas to Watch For. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe